


An Analysis on the Writing of RWBY

by SilverFlame27



Category: RWBY
Genre: Analysis, Essays, Nonfiction, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 14:39:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14287116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverFlame27/pseuds/SilverFlame27
Summary: An analysis on the writing of RWBY. I like RWBY but its writing isn't the greatest. I want to take a look at different parts of RWBY's writing; parts I like and parts I dislike.





	1. World Building

The biggest problem RWBY has is that it very poorly handles its world building. Most fantasy series, ideally, want to explain the bulk of their world with the first release: the first season of a show or the first book of a series, with later installments building upon the already known information. RWBY took about three season to tell just the basics about its world, and much of that information came from the World of Remnant side series. 

The World of Remnant is problematic. A side series should be used to expand on the primary source, it should not be the primary source of information itself. Having a side series to use as an exposition dump is a clear sign of not knowing how to organically world build. The early World of Remnant barely gave any new information at all, and when the did it was usually restated in the very next episode anyway. In the first World of Remnant we are told that people can infuse clothing with dust, however in the next actual episode Ironwood says, “Embedding dust into clothing is an age old technique” (Volume 2 Episode 8 2:34). This one sentence makes the entire World of Remnant episode unnecessary. The later World of Remnant episodes, the ones narrated by Qrow, were important information on the actual world of Remnant, information that should have been in the original show. The first three seasons were set in a school, they could have just give this information as class seminars.

RWBY has a magic system: aura, semblances, and dust. Within the shows world it is not actually magic, like the magic used by the maidens, but it is a real world impossibility within a fantasy series. Magic systems are things that have to be explained clearly and effectively, and not too long after the series starts. If a fantasy series states that a country is a monarchy, we as the audience have a real world idea of how a monarchy works, so even in the fantasy series, we already have a general idea of how the system works. But, there is no real world magic system for us to base our ideas off of. We are currently five seasons into RWBY and we still don’t fully understand its magic system. Does everyone have an aura? Pyrrha says any living creature with a soul has an aura. But, when she explains it to Jaune, he doesn’t know what it is. How can Jaune, who has wanted to be a huntsman his entire life, not know what aura, something apparently every person has, is? He doesn’t know so that we as an audience can have it explained to us. Jaune looks like an idiot who doesn’t know basic world knowledge for the sake of an easy exposition. How do semblances work? It has been stated by the creators that not everyone has one, so how common is it actually? Is it just coincidence that nearly all the important characters have a semblance? Is it common for civilians to unlock their semblance? In volume 5 Ren says that people don’t really know how semblances happen or what there relation is to the person. It’s not bad writing that the people of the world don’t understand it-after all in real life humans are still trying to fully understand the world around them. But, that is information that should have came about three seasons sooner.

There is one bit of world building in RWBY that I love. It’s a good amount of world building, it happens really early on in the series, and it only takes a single sentence. It’s the scene where Pyrrha uses her polarity to move Jaune’s shield during his fight with the Ursa. When asked how she did it she says, “Ruby has her speed, you have your glyphs, my semblance is polarity” (volume 1 episode 14 3:28). This line is perfect. We had already seen Ruby use her speed and Weiss use her glyphs, and now we have a name for them. By saying this line the way she did, Ruby has speed, Weiss has glyphs, I have polarity, she is telling us not just that these abilities are called a semblance; but, by attributing each person with a specific ability she is telling us that a semblance is unique to each person. We learn all this information in a single sentence. I wish RWBY had more moments like this.


	2. The Faunus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is going to discuss the Faunus and the ways I think Rooster Teeth mishandles them. As the topic of racism is a serious one, and one I have never personally experienced, I hope I do not offend anyone. If something I say comes across as ignorant, I apologize.

RWBY makes a genuine effort to tackle serious social issues like racism and prejudice. The Faunus are supposed to be subject to widespread hate and discrimination. The problem is that RWBY doesn’t really show any of it. The conflict with the Faunus is almost entirely tell don’t show. The faunus characters, namely Blake, spend a lot of time telling us that the faunus are oppressed, but we never really see it.

I can only think of a few times we really see faunus being treated poorly specifically because they are faunus. The most noteworthy example is the scene where Velvet is being bullied by Cardin. He is pulling on her rabbit ears and calling her a freak. He is clearly belittling her race. However the problem with this scene is that it does not give us an idea on how faunus are seen in general. As Jaune says himself, “Cardin bullies everyone.” Cardin is seen as an extreme, not the norm. Based on the reactions of teams RWBY and JNPR, it seems that most people are at least sympathetic to the faunus, if not going out of their way to help them.

The problem is that we never see any sort of systematic discrimination against the Faunus. It is stated that the various nations have different views on the faunus. We have seen faunus students from all major combat schools, Blake and Velvet for Beacon, Sun for Haven, and Neon from Atlas. So we know that faunus aren’t banned from any form of public systems like school. We also see several faunus with important position. Tukson, from the beggining of volume 2, owned his own business. Lionheart was headmaster of a huntsman academy, which is supposed to be a big deal. We don’t know if faunus are allowed positions in government. Mostly because RWBY is so uninterested the culture of its world that it only mentioned twice that the countries are run by a council. (I forgot that there was even a council before I re-watched the series for these analysis). 

I think the biggest problem with the Faunus conflict is that they don't tell us why people hate the Faunus. Racism doesn't really happen for no reason. I'm not saying racism is every justified, but there's usually at least some reason for it. Racism come about from things like two races have poor past relations, or having differences of between cultures that cause conflict. After generations of hate, people's views on other races could get passed along so much like a game of telephone that it just boils down to "they're different than us", but there's always a reason to start. Rwby doesn't tell us why people dislike the Faunus. In volume one they mention a war between Humans and Faunus, but they don't say if this is the cause or the effect of conflict between the two races. And as far as we can tell the Faunus don't have very different cultures compared to humans. Though the only truly Faunus culture we've seen is Menagerie, and we haven't seen it long enough to make strong conclusions yet. I just have a hard time believing that the Faunus would be so widely discriminated against when they are so similar to humans that they can completely pass for human with a bow. 

The faunus don’t seem to be subjected to any systematic discrimination. They appear to have all the same rights as humans. So what are the faunus fighting so hard against? It seems less like they are discriminated than it seems they are just disliked. I’m not saying that i don’t believe the conflict with the faunus. Even if there wasn’t discrimination, and the faunus are just fighting against racism, rather that fighting for equal rights, I can still believe it. The problem is that RWBY makes a big deal of how badly oppressed the faunus are, but we never actually see it. It wouldn’t take much. A store with a “no faunus allowed” sign. Being told that faunus are payed less than humans. Something to actually show us that faunus are being mistreated, instead of being told. RWBY really needs to adopt a more show don’t tell attitude. 

Update: So I went back a re-watched more episodes and there actually is a scene where someone has a no faunus allowed sign. The bar Qrow goes to in Volume 5 to look for missing huntsmen has a sign out that says no Faunus. This is interesting because it was in Mistral. Lionheart is the headmaster of Haven Academy which is in Mistral. So Mistral apparently doesn't officially discriminate against Faunus, but businesses are allowed to choose to refuse service to whoever they choose. This is interesting, and they said all this with one sign. Good job. RWBY needs more environmental story telling like this.


	3. Character Development

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look into the development of RWBY's cast of characters

Character development can make or break a series that is running long term. It's easy for things to get stale if after multiple seasons the characters all still act the same as when they started. RWBY has very mixed success with character development. They haven't had the most successful run with it. But, there are quite a few character development moments I like.

The first rule of character development is that it is a **development**. It is not when a character suddenly changes. The best type of character development is when the development is so subtle that you don't even notice it, but if you look at the character at the beginning of the series and compare it to how they are now, you can see that they are very different. I was really impressed with RWBY at first. Back in volume 1 Weiss had told Ruby that she would try to act nicer, and be a better team player. And then she kept acting the same way. I actually really liked this. I hate when characters just say they're going to change and then they just...do. It is very hard to overcome your own nature like that. I have been telling myself for years I'll act differently, then I immediately do the same thing I've been doing. It's not that easy to just change your personality. I know this was intentional. The writers said how in real life people always say they're going to change and go back on their word, and that they wanted to try to imitate that. I thought it was a really interesting idea. And then at the end of the episode Weiss said she'd change again and then she just...did. She had the conflict  with Blake later, but that was about the faunus, not just Weiss being unfriendly. The writers went out of their way to do this really interesting and realistic thing with Weiss' character and then just went, "okay but this time for real". What was the point? All it did was give an extra episode of the same conflict, that was resolved just as quickly as it had already been. 

Blake was in a similar camp as Weiss. Her whole character plot was about learning to genuinely trust people. Blake watched her friend Adam, someone she really cared for, let his anger corrupt him and become a dangerous madman. Blake had so many walls put up, that it looked like she was always going to be distant from her team. She was a bit too happy go lucky with her team in the first few episodes after forming RWBY, but I'll chalk this up more as the writers still learning the character than just bad writing. It was really nice to see Blake slowly lower her walls around her team. Which made it really hard to see her run away from her team after the fall of Beacon. I'm not going to sugar coat this. I fucking  **love** that Blake ran away after the battle. Her whole arc was built around lowering the walls she put up. She put up these walls because after Adam, she was afraid of getting close with people, just for something to happen to them. And then when she really feels comfortable, Yang gets seriously hurt solely  **because** she cared about Blake. Blake's biggest fear came true, and when it was time for her to make a call she went back to her old habit. Because it feels safe for her. Don't get me wrong, I think she should have stayed with her team from a character point of view, it would have been the right thing to do. But, from a narrative point of view, her running away works so much better. I liked that Yang was mad at her for leaving. I've seen a lot of people defend Blake saying it's hard for people to go against their bad habits, and saying that calling out Blake for it is victim shaming. The fact is what Blake did was wrong. It'd be nice to say everything was Adam's fault, but that's not how the world works. Actions have consequences. While I understand why she did it, it does excuse it. Blake's leaving hurt Yang, and I'm glad she was angry. I did not like that Weiss was so okay with it, especially after their whole conflict in volume 1. I'm worried that by next volume everything is just going to be forgiven. I hope the characters at least talk about it seriously. We'll just have to see. 

Yang I thought had a pretty good character arc. Her arc was about her recklessness. We saw many times how she just threw herself into battle with no real concern for herself. She would have died back in volume 2 if Raven hadn't come to save her. Her recklessness cost her her arm. She didn't lose it because Adam is incredibly powerful. She lost it because she jumped in head first without thinking. She spent all of volume 4 learning to get over this disregard for herself. And then when we see her in volume 5 she is much more in control. She doesn't just jump in swinging. She actually thinks first now.

Ruby has probably had the worst development of all of team RWBY. Which is pretty bad since she's the main character. If I had to say what Ruby's character arc was supposed to be I guess I would say that it was about her overcoming her fantasy of what being a huntress was about. Ruby had this childlike amazement about huntsmen. She looked at it like this fantasy. But then by the end of volume 3 when things get more serious she has to accept that being a huntress is a serious thing. Ruby kind of had this little arc about her being useless without her weapon. She spent a lot of time in volume 5 practicing hand to hand combat. This didn't come from nowhere. Back in volume 2 when she falls through the hole at Mt. Glenn and lost her weapon, she got captured by the White Fang after being easily beaten in a fist fight. The problem is this makes no sense. At the beginning of the same volume she managed to incapacitate all of team JNPR using only her semblance. Why could she not do that here? All she would have to do is run at them with her semblance and hit them. The sheer force from her speed would be enough to push them back at least and let her escape. Ruby has fought large groups of monsters and giant robots, but when put up against two random people, she forgets everything she knows about fighting. She's being stupid for the sake of the plot. She spends volume 5 learning how to punch instead of learning her literal magic silver eye superpower that is so amazing that in two volumes literally no one has even mentioned it.

Now that team RWBY is done I want to quickly go over the problem with team JNPR. Ren and Nora pretty much had no development until the end of volume 4. Jaune's arc in volume 1 I think was too long and came too soon. It wasn't bad development per se, but it was still the first season. We were still learning about the main characters when they derailed the plot to focus on Jaune. I actually like Jaune, but I don't think the show should have taken focus away from team RWBY for him. His arc was four episodes long out of the total sixteen episodes of the volume. A fourth of the entire season was spent just on Jaune. I would have either put his arc in the second volume, of shortened his arc to maybe two episodes. Actually maybe both. Pyrrha got no development. The writers knew they were going to kill her for the plot and didn't bother developing her. A lot of people complained that she died for Jaune's character development, but that's a gross oversimplification. Pyrrha died for  **every one's**  development. Her death, combined with Penny's, pushed Ruby over the edge and made her realize the severity of being a huntress. It developed the shows general tone, showing the audience that one of the most important characters died, and that things were serious now. 

Qrow and Oscar are too recent to really analyze their development as characters. Everyone else is completely unimportant. RWBY has this bad habit of introducing new characters to serve a single purpose. And then, when that's done they become completely irrelevant. The writers wanted Jaune to get over Weiss so they could focus on his relationship with Pyrrha. Rather than have Jaune and Weiss just talk, like people, they introduced Neptune. Neptune and Weiss had this little romance going on. After seeing that Weiss liked Neptune, he got over her. And then in the next volume Neptune flirts with team NDGO and Weiss gets mad at him. That's it. They don't even talk to each other for the rest of the volume. They built up this whole relationship between the two of them, and then it's ended with literally no conclusion. Neptune served his purpose, now make him irrelevant. I really like Fox. He is supposed to be blind and fights solely through hearing. I thought that was really cool. After team CFVY's fight at the end of volume 2, he preceded to do literally nothing the rest of the series. For a second I thought the writers were going to do something with Cardin. Maybe explain why he bullies people, why someone like him would want to be a huntsman, show him grow as a person. No. He's just an asshole. His purpose was to make Jaune feel inferior for Jaune's character arc. And then when Jaune's character arc was over Cardin was obsolete. RWBY gives all these character these great designs, interesting characteristics, and hypes them up to no end. And then none of them mean anything.         


End file.
